Summer Tours Are The Stupidest Thing – Interview with Beck of Glassjaw

by Brandon Billings / Schwegweb.com

Schwegweb sat down with Beck from Glassjaw to ask a few questions during their headlining tour with American Nightmare. We talked about everything from the state of the music industry, other bands, touring, art, and life on a bus.

Schwegweb: How’s the tour so far?
Beck: Pretty cool, we’re wrapping it up now, It started, and we got the first week cut off. Daryl was sick, essentially it started in Florida and we worked our way all the way around the states. We only got including today about 5 shows left, and its wrapping up. It’s been the first “official” headline for the band, you know we’ve been doing it forever. It’s not like an accomplishment, it solidifies what the band is. I personally don’t give a shit, but to other people, record labels and other bands, who think you suck, or want to prove that they’re better than you, they want to know how many people that you can draw in any given city. It’s “important.” It’s been fun, pretty good.

How did it compare to ozzfest/warped this summer?
I hate summer tours, I think they’re the stupidest thing in the world.

You seemed to keep to yourself on Ozzfest, was there anyone you connected with on the tour?
We had friends, we knew Apex Theory from Sno-Core, they’re a bunch of sweet kids, {We’re} friends with just Hatebreed, essentially. Glassjaw, we’re a different band, we’re not a west-coast LA cock-rock band. We’re a bunch of dopey hardcore kids from the east-coast. Someone like Hatebreed, they’re our friends from home, there’s more of a relationship, and understanding, a certain etiquette or pedigree going down.

How did that compare to Warped?
Warped tour is bullshit. I think this whole fucking “punk rock” thing is the least punk rock thing in the world. I think being the only band up there in white t-shirts neatly dressed was the most punk rock thing, its so passé, they’ve got tattoos, and crazy haircuts, fuck the police. I was never really into that shit. Punk rock, and the essence of punk rock is rock and roll and I think the message has really been lost. These kids aren’t punk rock, that just happens to be the cool shit in high schools now, its not the underdog, its not underground, that’s what’s cool. The cool thing happens to be to pretend they’re uncool people.
So were the fans any different?
[Burp] Our fans on that, if they came out to the warped tour, they were our fans. Our stage, you had to find us, you had to hunt us down.

Drive-thru wasn’t it?
It was the drive-thru stage

Can you talk about that, wasn’t there a little trouble with that, didn’t you drop off early?
No, we only wanted to do select dates. I personally hate playing outside. I hate outdoor festivals, It’s for barbecues and mosquitoes.
Did you get any kind of reaction or feel from new fans? People seeing you for the first time?
I don’t think there were that many new fans. There’s 10 to 12 bands going on at any given time at a fucking mall. If someone’s going to see you, they made the attempt to see you because they already know you. So it wasn’t like new exposure. It was new exposure on the ozzfest. But with warped tour, you might have played for some of your fans if they felt like dealing with the heat and tracking you down.

Ozzfest seemed the opposite, it was very organized, but the fans were more like “If you’re not the band we’re here to see…”
But the only thing is, at least you’d be playing out in the morning to 4000 people, versus the headlining on warped tour you play to 4000 people. So if you’re talking bang for your buck, or efficiency, to play to different kids, or new people, Ozzfest was much more effective, at least for that scenario.
So you prefer doing your own thing? Not a big tour?
Not a huge tour, but I enjoy being part of a cool package. Something inside, more consolidated makes more sense.

It seem more intimate in the club, versus outside in the morning.
You lose energy, you lose vibe, it just goes into the air. It’s not rock.
So the new album is in stores, you have a single out called Cosmopolitan Bloodloss, video on MTV and M2. How different, when you went into this album, how different was it than EYEWTKAS. You had a tour behind you, you had more money. Was there more pressure?
Not pressure, It was kind of a relief. Someone gave a shit. Road Runner was this piece of shit label, didn’t know what to do with us. We knew we got ourselves into a bad position, we should have listened to all our friends who got fucked on the label. It was just dealing with shit that we knew was going to happen. Warner Bros. was like “Alright, we understand the band, if there’s something we don’t understand, we’ll take advice from you.” It was the only label that worked, and they do things and they trust us. Road Runner was just like “Alright, we signed ya……..Alright, we signed ya………..No, we’re not gonna let you go, but we did sign you.” Do anything please. Anything’s a relief, just to get off that label. All the money that we got extorted out of us to get off that label was worth it.

Did Ross help at all in that?
Ross was the key player. Ross felt obligated, for bringing us to such a piece of shit label. He’s a producer, he has no obligation other than to produce the record, but Ross was like, good friend slash father figure, and spent his own time, his own money, personal funding to get us out of a poor excuse for a label. So yeah, we owe him everything for getting us out of that.

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